The Early: Ep. 1 | Navigating Early Career with Sammie Hasen (Investor @ TechNexus)

The Early: Ep. 1 | Navigating Early Career & Non-Linear Paths | Sammie Hasen, Investor @ TechNexus

Hi everyone - so excited to share the first episode of our interview series, The Early! Today’s conversation features my friend Sammie Hasen, a rockstar investor at TechNexus 🎉 

Today’s Agenda 📈:

• Welcoming This Week’s Guest, Sammie Hasen! 🎉 

• Key Takeaways: Navigating Early Career & Taking Non-Linear Paths 💭 

• My Favorite Quotes from Sammie 🧠 

• Poll: Share Your Feedback 💫 

• Say Hi! 👋 

Welcoming This Week’s Guest, Sammie Hasen! 🎉 

This week, I sat down (virtually) with a friend of mine and fellow early-career investor, Sammie Hasen. Sammie is an investor at TechNexus, a Chicago-based early stage venture fund investing alongside corporate partners with the goal of facilitating meaningful collaboration post-investment between the corporate partner and the venture. Prior to starting in VC, Sammie led Product Ops teams at Goldman Sachs and also founded her own women’s health company, Medsur, while still in college 🤩 

Key Takeaways: Navigating Your Early Career & Taking Non-Linear Paths 💭 

Sammie and I chatted about topics ranging from taking ‘risks’ in college (which often aren’t really risks) to leaving linear paths (like pre-med.) We also discuss what a day in the life in VC looks like, early career advice, hot takes and more 😃 

Here are a few key takeaways from our conversation (you can watch the full interview here):

Choosing Internships 🤓 

- Linear paths are overrated. Sammie originally went to school to be a doctor, and quickly found she was more interested in the innovation side of things. She had the opportunity to stay on the biomedical engineering/medical track, but took a chance to start her own company, work in a Product Ops role at Goldman Sachs, and later transition to a role she loves in VC (where she draws on learnings from each of her previous experiences.)

- In college, it’s easy to get caught up in chasing the best internship at ‘blue-chip’ companies. This is a double-edged sword - it’s common for students to aspire to only work for these top-tier companies throughout college. But, what happens when you then start in one of these roles full-time, and realize it’s not a fit? It can be helpful to have at least one non-traditional experience to explore a wider range of options, before having to commit somewhere full-time.

- It’s better to have a job you love at a smaller/lesser-known company than one you hate with a fancy name. In 10 years, no one will really care about the internship you had in college, or even your first job(s). You’ll likely do better work and excel faster if you’re doing something you love, instead of grinding through something you’re not passionate about.

Starting a Company 🚀 

- You have to put boots on the ground to get to know your target user base. As a founder, Sammie took to the streets of Atlanta to ask women about their health, which helped her gain key, objective insights about the anti-TSS (toxic shock syndrome) product she was building.

- No matter how cool you think a solution is, you have to be realistic about whether the market is asking for the product. Build something people are asking for. True pain points will become clear when you talk to your target market.

Working at Goldman Sachs 🔢 

- You can get startup experience at a big company: If you do start a role at a big company and realize you want to try working for a startup, you may be able to get the experience internally. Sammie worked for a division of Goldman Sachs that spun out of a startup acquired by the firm. She was able to learn about startups while also getting a sense for working somewhere bigger.

- Using learnings from her time as a founder: As an analyst at Goldman Sachs, Sammie was already leading meetings with Managing Directors and building product roadmaps, thanks to her founding experience.

Experience as an Early-Career VC at Technexus 🤝 

- Quality over quantity approach: Deal flow is great, but everything boils down to authenticity. Sammie takes the approach of trying to help others however she can instead of sending random deals.

- Breakdown of Sammie’s schedule: Over half of Sammie’s time is spent sourcing and talking to companies - she also diligences potential investments, dives into markets, works on portfolio projects, chats with other investors, and leads DEI initiatives.

- Three climate tech VC verticals Sammie is excited about: 1) off-grid energy & anything that reduces reliance on the grid, 2) vehicle-to-grid technology, & 3) sustainable transportation.

General Career Advice ✨ 

- VC (and life in general) is all about forming genuine relationships… plus, things are more fun that way!

- Go out of your way to reach out to others whose work you’re genuinely interested in, even if you’re not actively job-searching.

- Learning mindset and willingness to fail is a must. In VC (and other paths such as entrepreneurship) there is no clear ‘right answer' - you’ll make mistakes. How you respond and learning as you go is the important part.

- Figuring out what you don’t like is just as valuable as figuring out what you do - give yourself the space to try new things completely outside of your expertise.

- Having new experiences can broaden your options and open up more possibilities to you in the future, even if they take you off a linear path.

My Favorite Quotes from Sammie 🧠 

• “The best decision I ever made was leaving my original educational path and being comfortable with the idea of ‘wasting’ all those years and experiences, and taking educated risks to try something new.”

• “You can create really cool tech, but if there’s not a market for it, there’s not a market.”

• “VC is an apprenticeship role - you learn by doing.”

• “No matter how senior you are [in VC], you’re always learning.”

Share Your Feedback! 💫 

What do you think of the series so far? Want to suggest a future guest? Let me know below 🙂 

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Say Hi! 👋 

And that’s all for this week!

You can find Sammie on LinkedIn. Also, check out her newsletter Electrification Explained 🙌 

You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X. As always, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions and/or feedback. I’d love to hear from you! 🙂 

-Mic